Manuel Woodcrafts & Gen. Engg Company

If you come down Cochin University Road in South Kalamassery, you’ll find Manuel Woodcrafts & Gen. Engg Company. We are right in the thick of things near the university. The shop is usually pretty loud because we’ve got saws running and people working on metal parts. There is almost always a layer of sawdust on the floor, no matter how much we sweep. It’s an engineering and woodwork shop, so it’s naturally a bit messy. We’ve got all kinds of machines and tools scattered around the place. It’s a practical workspace, not a showroom. We spend our days measuring things, cutting wood, and welding metal. It can get really humid here in Kerala, so we usually have the big fans blowing all day to keep from sweating too much. We don't have a fancy office with air conditioning. We just have a small desk in the corner where we keep the bills and sketches for the projects we are working on. The students from the university walk past all the time, and the road is always busy with traffic. We just keep our heads down and focus on the wood and the metal. Sometimes a project takes longer than we thought, or a machine breaks down, but we just fix it and keep going. It’s hard work, but we like seeing things get built. It’s just a regular, local workshop doing its thing every day for the community around here.